Oxford, MS: Nautilus (June 2022)

Paperback. Reissue

New.

The Mississippi Book of Quotations brings together the artistry and cadences of the world’s greatest storytellers. It blends powerful observations on love, truth, lies, race, women, war, humor, failure, fear, humility, evil, politics, religion, law, the blues, violence, drinking, death, endurance, and sacrifice — the wide breadth of themes and emotions that make up life well lived and poorly lived.

David Crews has compiled this collection of quotations from, and about, Mississippi, available from Nautilus Publishing this fall. The volume, called “enriching,” “inspiring” and “outrageous,” includes quotations from writers, musicians, sports heroes, civil rights icons, and everyday Mississippians. There are searing insights, homespun wisdom, banal absurdities, and raucous humor from over 250 observers including Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Fannie Lou Hamer, Oprah Winfrey, Elvis Presley, Archie Manning, Morgan Freeman, and John Grisham.

Crews himself had encounters with some of these remarkable Mississippians. Living in Charlottesville, VA as a boy, he met William Faulkner – while Crews was stealing apples from the Nobel prize-winning author. Later on while living in Jackson, MS, Crews built a friendship with “Miss Eudora” Welty as he clandestinely brought her a copy of the New York Times every day.

As Crews says in his introduction to the book, “Mississippi, a fiercely complex land, is both mesmerizing and baffling. Our country’s most impoverished state is undeniably our richest when it comes to writing, lyrics, and stories.” Crews’ The Mississippi Book of Quotations takes the best of these and brings them together in a volume that is sure to be a treasure for any Mississippians. Mark Salzman, bestselling author of Iron & Silk, has expressed a wish that “this collection finds its way into every public and private library, digital reading device, and bathroom in America.”

Charles Overby, former chairman and CEO of the Freedom Forum, said of the book, “Reading The Mississippi Book of Quotations is like having a Who’s Who of Mississippians over for dinner and getting to hear them utter their most memorable words.” These quotes will warm you, enrage you, amuse you, and entice you. Says Crews, “I suspect readers will cringe in revulsion and cackle with delight. I might be wrong, but I don’t think so.”